The van is dead quiet as they drive out of Hawkins. Eddie doesn’t even put on any music. It’s just the sound of their breathing and the skim of the tires against asphalt.
He’s got ten thousand volts running beneath his skin, but he doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence. His three best friends are staring out the windows, expressionless, and he can’t take it if they aren’t as excited as he is.
Honestly, he wishes anxiety had glued his mouth shut when he was alone with Steve instead of now. God, that was so fucking embarrassing.
Hawkins slips further and further into the distance, and it’s only after they pass a highway sign saying sixty miles of interstate separate them from Indianapolis that the silence breaks.
Gareth sits forward, a hard breath escaping him. “Did that really just fucking happen?”
Jeff and Abel both start talking, words bursting out until the whole van is full of them yelling at each other in hysterical excitement. It goes on like that for a while; nothing coherent shared between them until someone—Eddie genuinely has no idea who—asks the first question.
“Rows of teeth?”
“How tall was it?”
“The claws: stilettos or daggers?”
“You get a read on its speed stats?
“Did it smell?”
“On the spectrum of slug to snake, what was the flesh like?”
“Max. hit points, right? Like, rolling crits on every turn?”
Eddie answers the best he can, even though it was dark and he was distracted by Steve doing stuff like existing and being nearby and protecting him.
They talk about it for the rest of the drive, never stopping for a second, barely taking time to breathe, but it peters out as they take their exit, stopping altogether once they’re in their neighborhood.
They get stopped at the light before their block, and Jeff looks at him. Eddie doesn’t turn, but he feels the intensity of the stare.
“What?” He asks. He reaches out to push Jeff’s face away, but he dodges it.
“That Steve Harrington, huh?”
“What about him?”
Jeff snorts. “What about him,” he mocks. “You finally meet the guy and he’s exactly your type.”
I don’t have a type!!” Eddie gasps. His foot slips off the brake, rocking everyone in the van forward with matching yelps.
“Jesus, man, watch it,” Abel gripes. He rubs his shoulder where it crashed into Eddie’s seat. “You definitely have a type.”
“Do not!”
“Pretty, bitchy boys.” Abel says.
“No.” It’s Eddie’s turn to yelp.
Chapter 5 of Hellfire Radio live now on ao3!